2026 Aston Martin Vantage S Roadster - POV First Driving Impressions

[00:02] Martin Vantage S Road Roadster. We have an allnew interior, 670 horsepower from an allnew interior, 670 horsepower from a 4 liter twin turbo AMG sourced V8. And we've got one of the fastest operating convertible roofs I've ever seen. And

[00:18] convertible roofs I've ever seen. And it'll do it up to speeds of 31 mph. around it. And this is going to be a first impressions video. I'm going to give you guys some first impressions, some initial thoughts on my time behind

[00:30] some initial thoughts on my time behind the wheel of this Vantage Roadster.

[00:43] in a minute because there's a lot of great stuff here that I'm really glad Aston Martin changed. This is their allnew interior. We've got physical knobs, knurled metal knobs for your temperature, fan speed, physical buttons

[00:55] for everything else, and then CarPlay ultra. But before we get into that, I want to show you the exterior of this thing because it is absolutely nuts. Also, look at these doors. How they open up and out slightly. Very, very cool.

[01:16] green. It is absolutely stunning. Price on this is $249,000 as tested. The Bowers and Wilin sound system alone is 10 grand. We've got a

[01:28] massive front grill here. Really has a absolutely stunning with both the roof up or down. We're going to have to put that down here in a second. Michelin Pilot Sport 5 tires. 27535 R21s in the

[01:44] Pilot Sport 5 tires. 27535 R21s in the front and 32530 R21s in the rear. Look front and 32530 R21s in the rear. Look at this print on the tire. It is just absorbs all the light and it looks so good. It looks so sharp. Michelin knows

[01:58] really doing it with their Pilot Sport 5. Steel brakes on all four corners. There is a carbon ceramic option, but not on this Aston Martin Vantage. The rear end here looks absolutely insane. From the ducttail spoiler to the

[02:13] tail light signature, the quad exhaust tips. Here's your key fob. It's got a lot of weight to it. Says Aston Martin on the side. You've got a button here to on the side. You've got a button here to pop the trunk while the car is running.

[02:31] you'll probably be able to fit a set of golf clubs back here. Look at this structural brace back here, too. Love this leather grab handle on the deck lid. It's all about the details here. And Aston Martin has done such a good

[02:43] job with this new Vantage. There's only 132 lb difference between the coupe and the convertible, which is amazing. Let's show you this top operation. Aston Martin is calling this their new Zfold top.

[02:58] And it's just a quick button press. Press back or down to lower it. And it just happens so fast. It also helps to increase rear cargo space.

[03:16] a convertible, I think this is absolutely stunning. The wide fenders, the wheels, it all comes together to make for just a beautiful, beautiful sports car, GT car, whatever you want to call it. This thing has the performance

[03:30] though and the dynamic capability that I haven't really experienced from an Aston before. On my initial drive in this last night, I was blown away by the acceleration, loads of grip around corners, these tires just hook up like

[03:44] crazy. Being British, hood release is on the passenger side.

[03:57] Again, 670 horsepower, 590 lb feet of torque, and if you care, 15 MBG in the torque, and if you care, 15 MBG in the city, 22 on the highway. about a 3,900 lb curb weight and pretty much all that engine is behind the front axle making

[04:12] engine is behind the front axle making for a near 5050 weight distribution. Look at this intake right there. Bit of cooling for the turbos. Awesome design, awesome engineering. Get some extra winglets here in the

[04:27] Get some extra winglets here in the hood. That's pretty cool. this Aston Martin Vantage. And there are so many beautiful details to behold from the tail light design, just all the design signatures in the front and rear

[04:41] fascias, the side profile. This is a really, really striking car in person. Not sure how well it's coming through on camera for you guys today. through on camera for you guys today. Vantage S, handbuilt in Great Britain.

[04:55] And it says it again somewhere up on the gauge cluster.

[05:15] We've got a few drive modes, track, sport plus, sport, and individual. the gauge cluster green, which is the proper color for an Aston Martin. Before around Aston Martin's native infotainment system here. This is just

[05:31] fantastic. First of all, it's very responsive. You've got really simple menu structures here. You can see some cool information like various telemetry, power, torque, going for all of your vehicle settings.

[05:44] You've got audio setup for parking modes. You can edit your sport mode, your individual drive mode. Here we change our exhaust. And then we have individual settings for turning off our auto stop start, changing our dampers

[05:57] auto stop start, changing our dampers between sport plus and track and making our exhaust valve open up so the exhaust sounds a little bit louder. You have a climate menu, but really you have everything that you need as a physical

[06:09] control right here. Heated and ventilated seats are a little bit easy to accidentally turn on down here, but that's okay. I'm sure you'll selector. You've got manual override, massive paddle shifters behind the

[06:21] the cruise control controls yet, but I just kind of mash a couple buttons and it seems to work out just fine. You've got your lights down here and button to here as well as your mirror controls over on the top left. Seat controls are

[06:35] down here. You can set one of three memory settings, which is very cool.

[06:47] So, you can go in and have access to all of your vehicle settings from your of your vehicle settings from your display brightness to your vehicle settings, automatic folding mirrors,

[07:00] driving assistance settings, and it's all got the Apple CarPlay design to it. Your gauge cluster also changes a little bit. It says the key fob not detected for some reason. Don't know why. There's a couple bugs that I've had

[07:14] fault. We'll see if that happens again once we go into drive and take off today. Uh, but otherwise, this Vantage has been pretty good. But it's responsive. It's nice. It's easy to use. It's attractively designed and laid out.

[07:27] You can do some cool stuff here, like you can add widgets to this screen and see your weather and time, etc. I think we're just going to put it on a ways. I'll show you what the 360 and reverse cameras look like. Those are very nice.

[07:39] No complaints there. And you get buttons for everything from turning off your lane keep assist to your parking cameras. It's just a great interior. It's so easy to use and operate. I absolutely love it. Look at

[07:53] that. Just press the little X on the side to uh get out of your parking camera. I think we've got a fan here coming to check out the Aston Martin. beautiful. >> I'm liking the TRX.

[08:05] sweet. >> This thing is awesome. Yeah, I'm filming >> are we Oh, starting. >> Oh, you guys are good. >> I'll give it a little rev for you. Let's put it in sport mode.

[08:19] >> All right, you guys ready? >> Yeah. >> You want the TRX? >> T-Rex sounds pretty good.

[08:33] >> Yeah. There we go. >> Have a good night, guys. >> Thanks. when you're in CarPlay ultra mode, if you change drive modes, your gauge

[08:47] cluster stays green. It stays in the same color pattern that it was before. Let's go for a drive and see how this thing feels on the road. Steering is super fast. Really, really quick ratio rack. Nice and smooth.

[09:04] The low speed drivability here is fantastic. It's just such an easy and pleasant car to drive around. Lots of refinement from the powertrain. Thank refinement from the powertrain. Thank you, AMG.

[09:20] We're going to put our windows up so we don't get as much wind noise.

[09:32] Here's what the seats look like. Super comfortable, nicely bolstered. Oh, yeah. This opens like that. And there's a massive massive storage space back there.

[09:47] are just gorgeous. The metal work feels fantastic. This is one of the best Aston Martin interiors I've seen in a long time.

[10:07] All right, we're in sport plus. We can feel the stiffer suspension. The front end bite is absolutely incredible. Turnin mechanical grip here

[10:21] incredible. Turnin mechanical grip here is amazing. Absolutely amazing.

[10:48] assistance here. Lane keep is off. That's nice. That's what we want. Last Aston Martin we tested, lane keep kept coming on every time we started up the vehicle. That doesn't seem to be the case here.

[11:10] we're discovering more as the more we drive the car and the more time we spend behind the wheel. But ultimately, this is just such a great execution, and it's such a breath of fresh air from

[11:22] Aston Martin. introduced such a nice tactile and high quality feeling interior combined with all this new tech which I think is just super awesome. You can swipe up for 5 mph speed changes.

[11:45] It is wicked fast. There is so much straight line performance here.

[12:02] more responsive. Let's lock it into manual. Oh yeah, we'll turn off our cruise control.

[12:19] We get some pops and burbles from the exhaust as you would expect.

[12:33] joy getting on the camera lens as I go a little bit faster in this video today. little bit faster in this video today. Has a kind of a blurring effect.

[13:00] There's a bunch of traction control modes in this Vantage S. We'll play around with a little bit of that, but

[13:16] Of course, it is warm out today. About 87 degrees Fahrenheit out tonight. Lots of flashing things on the dashboard. Lots of warning lights. Could dashboard. Lots of warning lights. Could do without some of those.

[13:41] There is torque from very very low revs. 2500 RPM, bit of turbo lag, but it just 2500 RPM, bit of turbo lag, but it just sets off after that.

[14:03] have a few traction control modes. I don't know how we adjust them. Oh, here we go with the drive mode selector. So, TC off, full off, or different levels. Look at that. Nine different levels. And the last one

[14:19] Nine different levels. And the last one is off.

[14:50] This is how an Aston should sound. Snarling away at you. I'm just not used to this level of poise and performance and grip.

[15:22] Nice auto upshifting there. The red line for me.

[15:35] and very fun. I love it. I absolutely love it. Well done, Aston Martin. The execution here is just awesome.

[16:01] mode. We've got one more entrance ramp here. control on, traction control on. It's not too invasive, not too intrusive.

[16:14] not too invasive, not too intrusive. It allows just a little bit of slip. There's a level of sophistication here across the board, a cohesive level of sophistication from Aston Martin that's very, very impressive in this new

[16:28] Vantage S. That's my initial takeaway with this That's my initial takeaway with this car.

[17:26] Let's do a little bit of driving with the top up. Supposedly, we can do this at speeds of up to 31 miles per hour. So, we'll slow down a bit here. Uh, yeah, we've got we've got some cars

[17:39] coming. All right, 30 miles an hour. Tops going All right, 30 miles an hour. Tops going up very quickly.

[18:09] We'll go into Let's go into sport.

[18:32] because it isn't, but it's definitely more of a traditional feeling torque more of a traditional feeling torque converter auto.

[18:47] It's not as responsive as a PDK or a dual clutch would be, but it needs to handle all this power. And it's hard to beat the ZF8 speed for And it's hard to beat the ZF8 speed for what it is and what it can do.

[19:05] Little bit of faint turbo whistle at quarter throttle. character of this with the drive mode selector.

[19:25] We have to listen to the Bowers and Wilkins. Is it worth $10,000? Wilkins. Is it worth $10,000? Let's find out.

[20:33] If you're already spending [music] 218, 220 starting price on this, [snorts] it's really, really good.

[20:45] ever heard in a car like this, in a sports car, in a smaller cabin. It's so clear. It's so good. It's amazing. All right, Bowers of Wilkins. Top-notch right, Bowers of Wilkins. Top-notch stuff.

[21:25] >> [laughter] >> Yes, there is 0 to 60. >> Yes, there is 0 to 60. Little under three and a half seconds. That really shifts, too. Wow. That's incredible.

[21:38] incredible. Absolutely incredible.

[22:04] whole package here. This does it all. It's comfortable. It's fast. It's high It's comfortable. It's fast. It's high performance. It's exciting.

[22:23] seen from Aston Martin before, but also the execution is just fantastic here.

[23:02] so taut. There is a feeling of quality here that I think has been lacking from Aston Martin as of late and they have brought Martin as of late and they have brought it back in just the best way.

[23:16] We're going to put the top down quickly here.

[23:29] some detailed information in the description with options, pricing, etc. on this specific car. Feel free to check that out if you're interested. Let's take one more walk around this just to appreciate the design.

[23:50] What a car. I was not expecting it to be this good, this exciting, this wellmade, this good, this exciting, this wellmade, and this well conceived.

[24:07] it kind of gets you in the feels. What else do you need? All right. Those are going to be some first impressions on the Aston Martin Vantage S convertible, Roadster, whatever they're calling it these days. We'll probably come back to

[24:19] these days. We'll probably come back to you guys later this week with some thoughts after spending some more time behind the wheel of this car. behind the wheel of this car. I think it deserves it.

[24:37] Of course, as soon as I've stepped away, it's lost the connection to my phone. it's lost the connection to my phone. Let's see if we can find it again.

[24:49] CarPlay. CarPlay Ultra is connecting and we are in. Awesome.

[25:14] does. There's an automatic setting. brightness. There is a physical dimmer switch down here, but it only controls

[25:29] the buttons as you if you guys can see that.

[25:48] you can see the temperature of your climate control and your fan speed right there. It's all just right there. This UI is just fantastic. This is what we want out of a modern vehicle. Not a bunch of crap cost cutting screens. We

[26:03] want physical things that integrate well with our screen. only car manufacturer to employ CarPlay Ultra. And the execution thus far is

[26:16] pretty darn good. I think some other manufacturers like eventually, but Aston Martin has the jump on them.

[26:52] poised around a corner. It feels light, too. Ride is comfortable. Sport plus a track. It gets a little bit firmer. That's to be expected.

[27:04] It's a pretty long press and hold to turn off traction control.

[27:56] All right, we'll end on that note. First impressions on the 2026 Aston Martin Vantage S Road Roadster. Thank you, Aston Martin, for making such Thank you, Aston Martin, for making such a great car.

[28:11] That'll be it for me for now. I'll see you guys in the next video. Take care.